Steven Rage's "Pilate: A Brutal Bible Tale" - Worth getting your hands dirty for!, ..January 19, 2009..
Look at your hands. Lines tell tales that without the right exposure live completely disguised within crevices that no amount of washing can remove. We yearn to have them clean - enough. Spend hundreds of dollars on this or that to wash ... them ... clean. But some stains never come out, no matter how much we scrub, steam, or sterilize. And what becomes of the hands that are soaked in generations of sins committed by their owners, perpetual motion of offenses against their fellow man time and time again? Isn't there something that we've all done that we just can't seem to cleanse ourselves from? And what if you were Pilate?

Steven Rage's "Pilate: A Brutal Bible Tale" explores the depths of sin, the way it stains our lives, and graphically illustrates the things we fear most. He forces us to look at true sin, true villainy, and truly offensive images of alternative realities. Sometimes it takes a shock to wake up!

Rage creates a dismal post-industrial future, a look at man defiled and in decline. Evil has arrived and this is NOT our Father's World! Dominion has been taken by those who walk as the damned, demons, Halflings, products of debauched rampages and sins against nature, and then, of course, the vampires. Sex, drugs, and broken souls are the only things of value. Life is more like a disease, and the only salvation is the right amount of Plata to numb the conscience and, if one is lucky, to bring on a cleverly disguised demise.

Introduce into this world a savior, a light for a dark world. Rejected in one life as a man, rejected in another as spiritual being, now returning in the form of woman, Immanuel returns to give God's creation another chance. Following religious folklore, parables, and beliefs, Rage presents the readers with a God who truly is the Shepherd that leaves no sheep behind. While this tale is deeply woven with the intricacies of a dark, drug-infested world ruled by evil forces, this is the story of a lost sheep. All are God's children, even the most foul creatures who by their own will have become so through their spiritual and physical copulation with the Devil, and as such, in God's mercy, still are given a chance to be saved.

All members of the passion play are present, but it is the one lost sheep that is the center of this tale. The one who by his denial of Christ, his rejected opportunity to do the honorable thing, is cursed to live as a vampire that walks century after century making the same mistakes. But is his curse to be a vampire or repetition?

Hell is repetition. Pilate is in hell. Hell has dominion over the earth, but will evil, and all those who since the birth of Christ committed sins against the innocent by turning their backs and betraying the Lamb, continue to play the same roles? Is this some predestined condition, roles for the damned that have no place for an alternate ending? What has become of free will? And if we exercise free will, does that guarantee a different ending?

Through the sheer shock of his presentation, Rage forces his readers to consider the alternatives, to look at the garbage in the streets, to see what is swept into the gutters at night right before all decent people awake to see another cleaned up version of the day. He uses tradition to break tradition, to push our imagination in ways that are uncomfortable at the least and border on the offensive at worst. Yet, in doing so, he illustrates what real love is. He gives to us a God that truly goes to the extreme, any extreme, to give the prodigal son a chance to come home.

While this not a Christian book by definition, it is a religious and philosophical tale cleverly woven in a tapestry of darkness. Horror by definition and presentation. Depths reminiscent of Dante's Inferno. Do you dare enter this world? Bravery has its rewards, and Steven Rage's "Pilate: A Brutal Bible Tale" is worth getting your hands dirty for!
  PILATE: A Brutal Bible Tale 

                                             "YOU MORBID WESTPHAL"         

                                           

                                                         STEVEN RAGE

Chapter One

                                                                                     

                                                SHIRK COMES CALLING

Pain Like Fire

           

It is getting colder than a witch's titty in your hospital room.  You can't see him, but that's how you always know.  That God damned Shirk is here again. 

Shirk stares his not inconsiderable malevolence and hatred at you.  That you know without needing to see the rat bastard.  You can sense his presence here and in the whole of the room.  You feel that stare.  You just know he's going to fuck with you again.

            Shirk sits quietly, sniffing periodically, in a chair across the room from you.  His presence is making the room temperature drop perceptively.

The demon chooses this moment to thrust his heavy compact body up from the chair.  He strides right on over to you and sits on the edge of your death bed which gives creaky protest to his other-worldly weight.  Tiny cries of please-please comes muffled from the roomy sleeves of his stained-sticky cloak.  The hood is turned up, the blood red eyes burn from deep within a face that is as old as pain.

"Well, well, look at you," Shirk derisively smirks.  "Looks like you're still all dressed up but can't get it up to go," he scoffs and flicks a sharp-nailed yellow finger at your useless pee-pee.

You can still feel the pain, however, and your silent scream makes the life support machine sound an alarm.  Shirk looks at you, mock worry fleets past his thickly wrinkled-leather face.  He puts an index finger to his lips, smiling, teeth a mad jumble of yellow and grey and whatever the fuck Shirk eats for lunch, and makes like you and he need to be quiet.

Shirk giggles scratchily to himself; being the star of his own show.  He reaches in to his big wizard-sleeve and removes a tiny screw-top vial of opaque granules, the movement eliciting another round of please-please from the teeniest-tiniest little humanoid you ever did see.  He was hugging the vial with all his might, staring with over-sized greedy bug-eyes through the clear glass at the wonderful drugs inside. 

It was mucky all around the center outside of the vial wall where the horny wee gnome had, on countless occasions, blasted his gravy.  So much so, it became a crusty railing in which the naked gnome didn't seem to notice.  He's too busy staring at the drugs, mewling for more, until he gets it, gets balls deep on the scum rail and ejaculates on the vial wall.  Then he will pass out with a blissful smile, hugging god in a death grip until he wakes up, begging for more.

Shirk plucks the 2 inch long pleading creature from the vial and holds him between the second and third fingers.  On cue, the gnome opens his mouth as wide as he can.  He slips out a long tongue and swipes it wet all over his face while Shirk unscrews the lid and dips the little spoon deep into the multi-gram vial.  The gnome smacks and smacks at the potent Plata, gobbling up as much as it can before being placed whole up the demon's nose.  Shirk snuffles up the big bumpety-bump, before rinsing and repeating, snorting what the tiny fiend couldn't get to. 

Shirk screws on the top of the vial while the spoon licks the thick Plata paste off his face.  Shirk lets the tiny gnome, who is already thrusting at the empty air, grab a tight hugging hold onto the drug vial.  Then the little beastie begins to hump the wall, squeaking like a cricket.  Shirk drops them both back down into his sleeve, breathing heavy with dark ardor.

Shirk's eyes brighten with an orange fire smoldering beneath a red-embered glow.  He starts moaning to himself, slow-dancin', swaying to the music.

"Love this shit," he states, shuddering, hand slipping up under, beneath his cloak, "it's just balls to jerk off to."

Jesus, no.

"Slip a finger in my ass," he says, "Second knuckle, hit that sweet spot…"

Jesus, please no.

"But I won't!" Shirk exclaims with a hearty laugh, looking down at you.  "Say!" he says, flicking you again, "You ever try it, junkie-fuck?"

Beside the sharp pain in the shriveled head of your doolittle, you can not answer, as Shirk already knows.  The airway tube has the cuff inflated and is taped securely down your throat, keeps your shit from vocalizing at all.  The breathing machine hums smoothly and expertly, filling your wrecked lungs with pressurized gases to keep your wracked ass alive.

"Did ya?" he asks, you say fuck-all. "Cuz if you never have, you don't know what you're missing or I'll suck you straight!"

Hydromorphone-methamphetamine hydrochloride, if you didn't know, had the lovely sounding Trade name of Duradilauderal.  It had an even cozier street name of Plata which is Spanish for silver and slang for folding money.  The popularity for Plata was just beginning to be a prairie fire in the Midwest when your body had already wore out.  Like a roofied starlet, the party went on without you.

"Probably the only drug you didn't abuse, if I remember correctly," shared Shirk.

Too true.

"Sometimes," Shirk admits, "You stupid fucking humans do mange to come up with something worthwhile."  For emphasis, Shirk pats your skinny stump of a thigh.  Then he trails his cold, wrinkly demon fingers up your leg to where the scars of Lilitu's love bites began.  He laughs as he remembers the night she made them at his behest.  They were numerous and deep and all over his belly and chest as well.

"That was fun, huh?" Shirk asks.  Seeing that you do remember, he chuckles afresh.

Fuck you, asshole.

"But this one is new," he says and bends to closely check on your latest surgical procedure.  This one involved removing the bottom half of your left leg.  Your thigh draws to a close in a tightly stitched below the knee amputation.  It was recent and still hurts.  He gets in real close and smells it.  He rises, wincing in mock sympathy.

"You got the gangrene, huh?  Too bad, buddy, it smells like liquid shit." Shirk states flatly, "I'm sure they had no choice but to chop it the fuck off and –Bam! No more leggy for Greggy!"   There is still no response from you.  "Bet that must've hurt like a mo-fo, butterbean," he says with a nice stump smack.

Blood and light yellow serous fluid splatter the already dirty bed sheet.  You howl silently as the pain like fire hits a big nerve cluster and heads north.  You break into a sweat, teardrops roll unimpeded down your sunken cheeks and the alarms sound again.

"Anywho," Shirk resumes with a comic sigh, "I guess I'd better stop playing with you, before the babysitter comes in and catches us."  He gets up, smoothing his cloak, looks back down to you.  He says: "Stick around," laughing at your restraint.  "The Fat Lady's warming up."

Yes, I know this.  Jesus-fuck, just go away!

"She's coming to dinner, baby cakes," Shirk warns you, "And grand-mama's hungry."

Piss off.

"Tell the old bat I said hi."

God you hate that fucking guy.

Steven,
I finished reading Pilate - man, you are an incredibly creative dude.  I haven't a clue how you came up with such a world.

Below is the review I'm planning to post.  Let me know if you have any questions:

Pilate – Bizzaro Fiction.

Note: This book contains graphic violence, illicit drug use, non-consensual extreme sex, and potentially offensive material given the religious references.

In the drug lord controlled area know as "The Harbor", biblical figures have been reincarnated. Immanuel, also known as El Cristo (Christ) is a young woman who has come to save those enslaved by an extremely addictive drug.  She changes the lives of those she encounters – such as Pedro (Peter).  However, her success negatively impacts drug trafficking.

Pilate, one of the drug lords, is an immortal vampire working for Herod the mayor of "The Harbor".  Due to Immanuel's success, Pilate misses one of his quotas resulting in Herod brutally torturing Juan de Batista (John the Baptist) and Mary Magdalene.  Pilate is infuriated by this betrayal.

The story follows the resulting power struggle between Pilate and Herod as well as Pilate's frequent visions of his past vampire lives.  Through these visions, released by Immanuel, he comes to understand who he really is and the ultimate choice he must make in this life.

Steven Rage's "Pilate" is Bizzaro fiction, a genre I admittedly have no experience with.  I found the references to illicit drug use and associated language difficult to follow given my unfamiliarity with the subject matter.  I also had difficulty the first few chapters given Rage's unique writing style and cadence.  However, my inner ear eventually tuned into this style and rather than being distracted, it resulted in my complete immersion into the bizarre world Rage created. 

I did find it odd at times that while the characters in the novel were well aware of historical biblical figures, other than El Cristo, no one seemed to realize they were the reincarnations of these figures.  It was also occasionally confusing which "sides" the characters were on though I believe Rage was demonstrating the internal struggle they battled between good and evil.

Rage has created an incredibly creative and detailed, though disturbing world.  Fans of this genre will find Rage's "Pilate" a unique, creative, fast paced, brutal, dark, and bizarre novel.

Todd A Fonseca, author of The Time Cavern

I am seeking a score of reviews for my Hardcore/Bizarro novel: "PILATE: A Brutal Bible Tale".  For all those interested in receiving a FREE professionally written and formatted e-book version of this published novel, please e-mail a request to:  www.blownpalace13@aol.com.  Indicate that you want PILATE and I will send you back a pdf attachment in exchange for you posting a review (whatever you think, I am confident you will dig it) on Amazon.com.  To further simplify, here is the direct link to post your book review:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1432717979/ref=cm_pdp_arms_dp_1

Thank you in advance and a very happy Hardcore Bizarro day to you all!!

 

All the Best,

Steven Rage

            Bubblegum was trussed up pretty like a nicely glazed holiday ham.  She was in her late teens, a good bleeder, and lay on the blood drinker's bed.

            The vampire eyed her closely, savoring the sight and smell of her.  She was moaning softly, pulling oxygen in and waiting for her snacks. She was gyrating gently against her soft restraints.

            Her eyes fluttered, dark lashes moist, her lips slightly chapped; the breath sweet.  She was beautiful.  The hep-lock plunged into a vein in the back of her hand was new and bank.  You could see it pulsing.

            Mary tapped out bubbles and shot the girl into another world.

            "Oh, blessed lord," she moaned.  When the Plata hit her hardest, her mumbling ceased and the whites of her eyes glowed, the pupils hidden, staring at herself.  She turned rigid, flushed.  Bubblegum was rushing her little balls off.

            The girl's breathing quickened, her skin turning bright red with the swell of oxygen pounding her shores.

            The vampire smiled, then.  He showed clearly teeth that lengthened as the grin spread wicked across his pale cold face.

            "Take her," Mary told him.  "She is all yours now."

            He bent to her.  She was down for it, slick saucy and sweet. 

            For a moment, Pilate lost himself.

            The blood was like sipping paradise.

                                                                       )0(

            Juan and Mary knew that Pilate was a vampire and they were smart enough to be afraid.  Even still, they were dying to meet him.  He had it all and they wanted in.

            The couple sat in the bar sipping cocktails, just as they had done every evening for almost two weeks straight.  They watched him appear.  Just appear, man, right out of thin air over by the bartender.

            The vampire handed the nigga a package which vanished beneath the bar top in an instant.  It was exactly the same routine as the last three times.  It wasn't a pattern, exactly, not one that could be fingered, but they knew he would eventually show up because the dealer always did.  He had to deliver his drugs.  Juan and Mary knew if they were patient and waited long enough, Pilate would show.

            The small, tightly wrapped package should be Plata if they knew their guy, which they did.  The bartender handed the vampire an envelope; cash, most certainly.

            Pilate peered inside the envelope, checked the denominations, gauging the thickness.  He didn't count it though.  The vampire didn't need to.  No one in their right mind would be stupid enough to buttfuck the drug dealing vampire.  Even so, he looked like he could use the help of a couple of down motherfuckers like Juan and Mary.  You know, to help with the day to day.  The young couple just needed a way in.

            Pilate looked at the bartender, said something Juan couldn't begin to hear across the distance of the bar and the slow, deep throb of the hard Thug Love gangsta shit blasting forth from the DJ's station nearby.  Whatever it was must've scared the god-fuck outta the dude, cuz he stepped back and put his hands up in surrender and fear.  The bartender backed up a quick two-step as Pilate leaned in, his long tightly curling hair spilling in a wave, obscuring his face.  The menace in the gesture and what he must have said was full and uncomfortable like a dildo on a church pew. 

The bartender looked frightened bad, dropping his arms and folding his hands.  He lowered his head, nodding in supplication, staring at his feet.  His quaking Juan could see even from across the room.  The nigga was a big dude, too, really more imposing than even the vampire.  But the poor, scared fuck was not a vampire and the nigga threatening him was.

"My God," Mary said, watching the scene with Juan, "You ever see that big fucker scared before?"

"Only now," he replied.  "It's interesting though."

"For sure," she spoke, took a quick sip of her cocktail.  "We sure are looking at the right dealer to hook up with, that's clear."

Juan nodded his agreement, noting how Pilate stood straight and then in one quick movement, turned to look right at him.

"Fuck," spat Juan, his own fear bursting within.  That nigga's eyes were yellow and backlit.  They looked like a night hunting panther's, glowing as they were at Juan.

Then, just like that, he disappeared.  Juan turned quick to Mary.  She was still glancing that way.  He opened his mouth to speak and saw the color vanish from her face.  Her lips quivered and her eyes grew wide.  She then backed up and Juan turned to see. 

And there Pilate was, standing right in front of Juan and Mary's table.  Speechless, they stared at the vampire and he right back.  And then, without a single word, Pilate dissolved on the spot, gone without a trace.  There was some displacement of air, a slight cold whoosh and that was it.

It was a few moments before Juan and Mary could breathe and the bartender, they could see, was even more fucked up by his encounter than they.  From where they were perched, they could see the bartender shaking like he had wet hair in a meat locker.  He turned to the racks of liquor behind him, ignoring customers coming up.  He poured himself three big shots of top shelf tequila, slugging them one after the other.  When finished, he pinched the bridge of his nose, shut tight his eyes, leaned on the ledge running below the bottles.  He collected himself with a final big breath, straightened and went back to work.

"Wonder what he said," Mary mused; shaking her lonely ice cubes at a passing barmaid and was ignored.  "Just when I really need one, you bitch!" she yelled after and was still shunned. 

Juan handed her his mostly full drink and she threw it back.

"Jesus, who knows what he said," he muttered, thinking.  "I mean, shit, baby, motherfucker didn't say even a word to us and I feel like climbing into a hole and pulling the earth in after me."

"Exactly," she agreed.  "Whatcha think, Papi?  Should we just forget it?"

Juan wondered that very good point for a moment, then said:  "He sure is scary, for real," he told her, "but he's our way in."  Mary nodded in agreement.  "And once we are in," Juan continued, "We won't have to be afraid of anyone else, baby.  Not in the whole of The Harbor."

"We'd be the big-dick daddies, for sure."

"Yeah," he agreed, "If he doesn't kill us first."

"Still," she said, "It's clear he needs our help."

Mary pushed Juan's now empty glass away and reached into her purse.  She pulled out and lit a thin, pre-rolled blunt of half tobacco and half homegrown Mary Jane.

"He really shouldn't even be here," Juan mused, "it's not safe."

Mary pulled hard on the blunt and nodded.

"Shorties or even the two of us should be flippin' shit, not the top dog."

 "That's for sure," she said, handing Juan the blunt.  "How are we gonna hook him, though?" she asked.

Juan smoked and thought.  He knocked ash on the already very dirty bar floor.  "I was thinking of an offering."  Mary looked at him closely.  "A gift," he said.

"I don't know," she responded, taking back the blunt.  "I mean, just giving the motherfucker a sandwich won't do it," she countered, "He can hunt whomever he wants, true?"

"Yeah, but he's exposed and shouldn't be."

"Also true," Mary agreed.  "Oh, shit, wait," she said, looking back to the bar.  "There's our answer."

Juan turned to where she was looking and saw a young comely Plata fiend.  She moved slow and sexy through the crowd, touching many patrons, speaking slow with a naughty smile.  On and on she went, looking for a daddy.

Juan smiled at Mary's idea.  They looked at each other.

"But if we gave him the gift that keeps giving…." trailed Juan. 

"We will need some cheese for the trap, baby," Mary added, gesturing toward the now recovered bartender.  "And I know where we can get it."

Juan sucked on the blunt again, held it in.  He loosed out a big plume and handed it back to Mary.

"Go and scoop her up," Juan told her.  "Ply the little cooze with drinks and a few lines.  She doesn't look like she shoots up."

"No she doesn't," Mary agreed, "At least not yet."

"Yeah," Juan nodded, seeing where she was going.  "Now you'll get to use some of your long dormant EMT training, get her set up for the long haul."

"Think she'll go for it?" Mary asked, watching her get rejected and looking more and more anxious."

Juan stood to let Mary out of their booth.  "Does it really matter?" he asked.  "Little baby Bubblegum over there looks like she'd fuck herself with a pool cue for a taste of the Silver and we're gonna keep her fucked up on Plata 'round the motherfuckin' clock."

"And if she doesn't go for it?" Mary insisted.

Juan smiled down at her.  He said: "I think blood taken by force will taste just as good as blood given.  Don't you, my love?"

"Yes I do, you fucking gorgeous creep," she replied, biting her lower lip, nostrils flaring.  Juan knew she was getting wet.

He bent down quick to give her a kiss. 

"Go fetch," he ordered.

Mary went to the bar.  Bubblegum was leaning against some older dude, trying to laugh at his lame shit.  Keeping half an eye on punkin' pie there, Mary got the bartender's attention.

"Two Crown rocks," she told him, placing the empty glasses on the bar top and pulled out some cash.  She laid money down for the drinks.

When the barman served up her drinks, Mary smiled sweetly, wrote on a bar napkin.

"My phone number," she told him, loud enough to be heard by anyone giving a shit.  She handed over the napkin to the bartender.  He picked it up and looked at it closely.  He saw the two bills folded inside.  He looked up at her, Mary smiling sweetly.

"I see a 2 here at the end of your digits….that right?"

Mary nodded, "Uh huh."

She straightened and waited for the barman to make change.  She turned slightly, saw the girl losing interest.  The old dude actually thought she wanted another drink.  Bubblegum was getting increasingly anxious, no doubt her Plata high was wearing off and she was at the very beginning edges of panic.  Mary could see she was ripe for plucking.  Mary got her attention.

"What's your favorite color?" she asked the girl.  The bartender turned back and gave Mary her overly lumpy change and her cocktails.

"What's that?" Bubblegum asked, turning full to her. 

Mary smiled back at her while counting her change.  It was all there:  two fives, two singles and a small zip-locked baggie holding two grams of hydromorphone-methamphetamine hydrochloride.  She let her new friend see the taut little yum-yum bag.

"I asked you, what's your favorite color?" Mary repeated, "Silver, right?"

"Yeah, new best friend," Bubblegum cooed, "Plata is my favorite color."

"Well then." Mary replied with a growing knowing smile, "Come with me and I will make all your dreams come true."

Bubblegum immediately left the bar, following Mary without a moment's hesitation.

Juan went back to the same dark shoddy bar, again.  And, again, he went without Mary.  She stayed away to tend to Bubblegum, keeping her stoned and happy.  The girl still thought they both had a sex crush on her and they let that fantasy remain intact.

Juan needed to find Pilate, this time for a face-to-face meeting.  Nobody knew the vampire, or where he cribbed or how to contact him.  It didn't matter, however.  Juan wanted no one but his Mary and him in on this plan.  The Harbor may be a post-industrialized ghetto shit hole, but they knew small town rules still applied.  Everybody knew everybody's business: who was zoomin' who.  It's just like Mayberry, but with a much higher body count. 

They could tell no one; trust no one.  One word of what they were planning and niggas might kill them simply because they hadn't thought of approaching the vampire Plata dealer first.

Once again, Juan made his way through the drunk and fucked-up bar crowd.  He was nervous as all hell.  He'd been drinking more than he should, smoking super-strong ghetto weed constantly.  Finally, after almost two weeks of this nerve-wracking shit, Mary pleasantly surprised him with a handful of muscle relaxing pills which he doled out to himself; one at a time.  It helped a great deal as he trolled the same sleezy, sticky, loser filled bar, night after fucking night, waiting for Pilate.  He was worried the vampire wouldn't show up and even more nervous that he would.

Juan did a perfunctory head check of the patrons, seeing no Pilate around, had to pee.  With some growing dismay, he pushed back, deep into the bar, toward the toilets.

The restroom was filthy and crowded thick with men pissing.  Trannies were sucking dick, their johns holding cash above their bobbing head as a promise.  Drugs were being snorted, deals going down.  Some nigga was desperate enough to tie his shit off in this horrid crapper in one of the door-less stalls, flicking up a vein, trying to feel for a bump to target his needle.

Juan went into one of these stalls.  Some passed out fuck, pockets having already been turned out, slumped over to the side, head planted into the feces smeared wall.  He considered trying to wake him or dragging him off the seat.  Instead, it was most expedient to simply pull out his pecker and piss on the motherfucker.  He wouldn't care.

Juan was just shaking it and zipping up when he sensed someone behind him.

A cold hand dropped solidly on to his shoulder.  It was strong.  The talons growing out of the split fingertips dimpled Juan's coat, punctured the cloth, and pressed into his flesh.  Juan was surprised at how much it hurt.  He sucked it up though and stood tall.

"You got balls hunting me," the vampire told him.  Pilate squeezed a little more and made Juan hurt a lot.  "But do you have the heart?"

"I'm not after you, we mean you no harm."

"What do you want then?"

"We wanted to meet you," Juan told him.

"You and the girl you were with?"

"That's right. I was hoping to speak with you."

"And you are?" the vampire asked with a bit more pressure.  It was getting bad, the pain, but Juan knew a test when he felt one.  Juan told him their names and intentions.  "Services?" he asked, "What services?"

"Whatever you need, you know, help," said Juan, arm going numb, fingertips tingling unpleasantly.

"You two want to help me sell drugs?"

"Yes, exactly," Juan replied

"And what, exactly," Pilate mockingly replied, "makes you think I won't kill your uninvited ass where you stand?"

"Because we would not dare to seek you out empty handed, Sire," Juan told the vampire.

"Stop the ass-licking sire shit, I don't like it," Pilate warned, "And it will not help to keep you, or your Mary alive."

"What shall we call you then?"

"Nothing yet," he said.  "What do you have for me?"

"We have an offering."

"Offering?  What kind of offering?"

"Blood," Juan stated," "A continuous stream of it."

The vampire smiled then.  "Yes," he replied, "That might do."

"I can take you to Mary, where she is being kept for you.  And then we can bring her to where you stay."

"And this token of your esteem is in hopes that you and Mary can work for me, with me?  Is that right?"

"Yes, exactly," Juan agreed.  "We can be of great value and help.  We can assist and protect you."

"What do you hope to gain and I expect the truth from you," Pilate advised with one more, tiny squeeze, "Your life, where you stand, depends on it."

Juan did not have to think, Mary and his motivations had never changed.  "We want in," he said simply, "And you are the way."

The vampire was silent as he removed his painfully frigid grip from Juan's shoulder, blood seeping now from the talon punctures.  Juan could feel him moving close to whisper in his ear.

"Well now, seeing as you two now work for me," the vampire said, "I guess you should call me Pilate."

                                                         )0(

Pilate's main lair was in an abandoned church at the very end of a lane of old houses.  All crosses and signs of Jesus Christ had been long removed, the church itself still seemingly empty.

The grounds surrounding the church were littered with trash, the grass long dead, weeds proliferating everywhere.  An ancient and twisted oak tree stood sentinel and it alone hinted at any life on the forlorn property.

The old church may have looked completely desolate, but it was not.  Inside, the vampire was being shown his gift.

Bubblegum was brought into the church via the back.  She didn't fight them a bit as she was led down the stairs to an old bomb shelter Pilate used as his bedchamber.  He had a bank vault door installed, some time in the past, so he could lock himself inside.

He had no family, friends or associates to lookout for him.  He had no familiars or anyone to help him with his work or to keep him protected and safe.

His almost complete lack of social graces attested to his lonely life.

But his new employees, Pilate's new friends, were here now and they did not come to him empty handed.  They had brought such a gift.

The pressurized intravenous line ran from the metal IV stand next to the girl's bed, to the jugular vein in her pretty neck.  A 3-way stop-cock kept Bubblegum's precious blood from squirting all over Pilate's bedchamber.  Heparin and saline filled the taut IV bag and kept the blood from clotting and dying.  The teenaged girl had an oxygen mask on her face, a big green metal tank standing tall in the corner.

For a vampire, it was the best kind of breakfast in bed.

Juan and Mary stood nearby, excited and happy.  Pilate went to Bubblegum and knelt at her side.  They watched their new boss and benefactor.  They had done it, they were in.

They smiled and held hands as Pilate opened the stop-cock and began to feed, making everyone's dreams come true.

                                                                      ….end

                                               "NOT BY HALF"

                                             Hardcore Horror by:

                                                    Steven Rage

           

            He walks through the wall, unimpeded.  A huge blocky slab of ice forms in an instant and he is gone.

The near-dark he leaves you in is fogging up from the ice melting and the hospital's industrialized environmental heat control kicks on and ramps up.

Hell for you begins in the here and now, in your sickbed.  You don't need some snarky visiting Dark Deity to clue you in on this golden nugget.  You know how you got here, that's for sure. 

It is here you started planting your sins.  It is right in this spot where you have watched with joy, in the bits of clarity, their budding fruits. You looking down and smiling as they piled high.  The silent cries and screams and pleading troubled you not.  You enthralled at restraint, too weak to fight back, aware of how wrong it was.  She could not understand why you were doing that to her.

Now the dharmic spill has covered you, laying still and unmoving yourself.  Chemical restraints they call it, keeping you drifting in and out of consciousness, fleeting as a swirling passing breeze, then back down to the deep dark warm nothingness. 

Because you cannot be baby-sat 24/7, strong leathers make sure you stay put, if you accidentally throw off the chemical shackles.  If you ever try to heave yourself over the safety rails and truck right on out of this place.  No way, Jorge, just forget about it; ain't happening.  You are here, my friend, for the duration.  The Big Man says so.

This is why you are wrapped in your sick bed, dying slow, perfectly still, alert in this moment.  Not surprisingly, you seek your only form of comfort.  You search for the dark cloth to pull over this pesky alertness, but then you feel something under the covers with you. 

Through the foggy dim light, cold drizzle falling soft on your bits of exposed skin, you see her.

The hand grasps up your leg, dark blue and crawling.  The night-light glow, showing through the growing fog of melting ice, illuminated the bone-thin and veiny dead hand.  Her old face comes into view.  Her mouth is screaming silent.  Her eyes are red and leaking, reeling you in, you stare hard at her as she grabs your crotch with her other hand.  She tugs and pulls her way up, the tired green covers slipping past her wigless, spotted scalp, blue with death, hands icy on your bare stomach.  You screaming noiselessly, the breathing tube keeping you alive placed through useless vocal cords.  She uses the hair and loose skin on your withered chest for purchase.  Your head is rigid and your neck too drugged and heavy to move.  Her horrid breath is leaking out of the great black hole of her dead mouth as she reaches your face.  She grabs hold of your life support connection and pulls the circuit from your breathing tube.  She drags her dead, decaying self, one more tug and she clamps her hole of a mouth onto your breathing tube.  She begins to suck on it, aspirating the life right out of your lungs. 

The breathing machine alarms shrilly, but no one comes.  You crash inside, darkening your peripheral vision, narrowing, closing down.  Your heart thuds crazily in your chest.  You lose your hold on consciousness and you lose, are lost. 

Finally, as the only thing left of This is the faraway alarm of a cardiac arrest and the only thing so far of That is the scent of sulfur and sugar, the code team arrives.

They come wading in and save your sorry ass, again.  They pull you away from That and back into Hell's waiting room.  Back to your bed, back to being resuscitated by a whole fucking squadron of scrub-clad heroes.  Fifty bills an hour times twenty of these motherfuckers and you ain't worth the scratch, brother, not by half.

The heroes bring you back, successful, slowing down.  Just now noticing the cold water puddling their clever-stupid multi-colored crocs on their sore wet feet, wondering from whence this shit came.

Fuck fuck, dumb-ass donkey fuck, you think.  I'm still here.  Show some mercy and gives us some morphine, you fuckers, you yell in your mind.  You need to go under, rest.  Because you know they'll be back.  And so must she.

                                                )0(

Westphal pulled into the parking lot of Harborside District Hospital.  He selected a spot near the exit and killed the motor.  He sat a moment, using the corner of his driver's license to snorkel up a bump of the white lady, and yet again.  He put the cola away and sat, reflecting on his chances.  Really of how he didn't have any more, how he'd let them all run out.  Too many missed shifts, too many doctored piss tests, too many pleading visits to the licensing board.  Too many iced vodkas and baseball chalk lines of MDMA and cocaine to go high and wide.  Too many muscle relaxers and sedatives, more vodka to come down, just too many.

Westphal's eyes hurt as bad as his head.  His shift began at 7pm and ran unrelenting until 7am.  Working graves at the end of his career in a Skilled Nursing Facility.  It was pretty fucking pathetic.  Westphal can't even see forty yet, but instinctively knew the score.  That this glorified nursing home, working only as needed, with no benefit package on night shift gig is the only work left for the likes of him.

Westphal checked his reflection, interested not in appearance but survival.  He needed to see how red his eyes were.  They were pink and shiny from the bud he smoked on the way to work, having already panicked from being too fucking high to think straight.  He smoked the joint on the way in hopes of coming down at least a little.

With the shaking hands Westphal also had to hide, he squirted liberal splashes of eye drops.  He wiped the streaming extras as they sloshed his cheeks.  The burst capillaries as gin blossomed memories of what he'd become. 

Westphal dry-swallowed an acetaminophen and codeine tablet.  He dropped in his mouth some tongue-numbing mint gum.  He chewed on it, hoping to obliterate the smell of weed, liquor, and an unchecked fungus.   It grew on his gums and tongue and was making his teeth hurt constantly.  All of this done in preparation to go in and baby sit a veggie or two for the night.

Westphal was the only member of his department on the graveyard shift for that part of the hospital.  His only true responsibility, besides an occasional life-threatening emergency, was to maintain the life support breathing machines for the elderly who aren't yet ready to, or are not allowed to die.  Federal laws made it mandatory to have a Westphal standing by.  And you can bet his paycheck reflected this bottom of the pudding cup status.

He'd fallen so far from doing research trials and honing his craft in the labs and Intensive Care Units he'd spent his early career.  It showed just how far he'd slipped in that Westphal was grateful for the easy cake.

He exited his three cylinder pop can, shut and locked the door.  Westphal dropped a checking hand into a Velcro-ed pocket, assuring himself of tonight's refreshment.  He eyed the entrance to Harborside District Hospital and walked through, trying his damnedest to stay straight enough to begin another shift.

Taking care of Mrs. Fussbudget was Westphal's main responsibility for the shift.  She was on the sunny side of eighty and was in the 'SNiFf' to recover from her knee replacement. 

She contracted a nasty pneumonia which required the placement of a trachea tube for easier breathing.  It sat secured in the center of her throat, down by the notch. Now that she was feeling a wee bit better, Mrs. Fussbudget decided she hated the trachea tube.  It made everyone who came to visit stare at her like she had a neon sign flashing below her chin. 

She battled also a blood born infection.  The sepsis almost did the old girl in.  She was in a coma for a month.  The antibiotics had finally worked all their man-made magic on Mrs. Fussbudget.  She awoke to feeling weak, but hungry, always a good sign. 

The mechanically softened food was wretched: cold and devoid of flavor.  The texture always reminded her of just how sick she'd become.  But now, she's so much better.  Well enough to allow her family to begin plans ..ing her recovery with home health.

The family cherished Mrs. Fussbudget and they were anxious for her return.  They were delighted to have her off the breathing machine and home, they were told, in only a few days.

They were all disappointed.

She awoke to no family visiting, but there was a lone man standing by her bed.  He looked down at her.  His lecherous smile lingered on her, roving with his twitchy eyes, long after her smile faded like winter warmth.  It made Mrs. Fussbudget uncomfortable. 

He reached out to her. 

Morbid waited until Westphal vanished down the hall before seeking out his quarry.  He looked carefully all around, making sure the coast was clear.  Morbid crept down the long empty hospital corridor, stopping at her door.  After spying no one about, he spun into her room.  Mrs. Fussbudget lay sleeping.

Morbid saw the old woman, lying still and unmoving in her hospital bed.  She had eyes closed, a tube in her throat.  Mrs. Fussbudget's face was soft, sleeping peacefully.  She was recovering marvelously now, her breathing triggering the machine, augmenting her placid flow of air.

The vast network of deep wrinkles attested to her longevity, her hard fought time on this Earth.  They ran from under salt and pepper wig.  Morbid longed to touch them, to run his fingertips down through the grooves.  He wanted to trace them down from her eyes to her cheeks and further to the jowls.  Follow them down to her blow-hole and circle it around, around again and around.

Instead, he just stared at her.  Morbid thought she was just lovely.  He was tempted to rush in, but not yet.  Not before it is perfect.  Morbid must first ready himself. 

He went quickly out, while Mrs. Fussbudget was still snoozing peacefully, and checked the hallway one more time.  It was quiet, none about.  He re-shut the door to her room and made a bee-line for the bathroom.  Morbid shut and locked the door.

The light was so harsh and the mirror unbecoming, but both were necessary.  Morbid brought out his small kit.  He laid out the vials of powders, his multi-dose bottle of normal saline and a short syringe with its tiny, ultra-sharp needle.  Morbid knocked out a bit of both white powders, added a third bit of finely ground blue powder, and put them all in a wide-mouthed empty vial.  He squirted a couple milliliters of saline onto the three powders, prepping two, maybe even three doses.  Morbid sealed the top and shook the holy hell out of it.

Morbid knew the potent mixture would not completely dissolve and there was no time or opportunity to provide the melting powers of heat.  Instead, he rolled up a 'two-by-two' clean gauze pad and stuffed it into the opening of the mixture vial.  Morbid removed the cap and stuck the needle into the impromptu filter.  He pulled back on the plunger, sucking up light blue liquid into the syringe.  Then he turned back to face the mirror and the bright light.

Morbid shook with longing.  He knew Mrs. Fussbudget lay sleeping and waiting.  He needed to step it up a bit.  He opened up his mouth wide, lifted the furry fungoid tongue.  Morbid saw the blue veins, leaning into the mirror.  Morbid slid the sharp needle under his tongue, through the pink flesh and into a waiting vein.  Morbid pushed in his medicine.  He pulled out the needle, held his head back.

"Here comes the train…" says he.

With ears ringing and doll eyes growing, Morbid packed up his goody bag.  He worked through the rush, humming through his noise, happily swallowing blood, the horrible pain fading, crawling back under its rock.  He put all the necessaries neatly away and was ready to do the light fandango, takes two to tango, dance of morbid love.

He turned off the light and left the bathroom, closed the door.

She was still sleeping as he came to her.

"Mrs. Fussbudget," Morbid whispers in quiet honey croon. His jingling fingers a-tingly, "I just want you to taste me."

She awoke and blessed Morbid with a quickly fading smile.

The sound of Westphal's two-way snapped him back to center.  He was outside by the flagpole, staring up at the night.  He watched the tops of the big palms sway.  The two-way called his name again.  He held it in his hand and stared at it.  He answered.  The voice was male, felt familiar.

"Westphal, you there?" asked the voice.

"Yeah, I'm here," he responded.  "Who is this?"

"Aw, c'mon Westphal," chided the voice, "has it been so long?"

Westphal's mouth went dry.  He tried to swallow, nothing there.  His heart began trippin' on him.  It was hard to speak, Westphal weakened with the effort.

"Who – what do you want?" he managed.

"He needs you, man," the voice responded.

"Who needs me?" he asked, as forceful as he could.  It came out a squeak.  But the voice didn't laugh, he told him the patient.  "You're kidding, right?  Is this a joke?" wondered Westphal.

"No joke," the voice assured.  "And he will die if you don't get here."

"No way," Westphal replied, strengthening with indignation now, puffing up; vigorously shaking his head.  "You know that disgraced junkie-fuck is no patient of mine."

"You're the only one that can save him, though.  That's what the fuck I know," from the voice.  "He's dying right now."

"That's not my concern, call the one assigned."

"You also know the patient is never assigned to anyone," the voice scolded, "he's just monitored, on life support, and wishes to be fully resuscitated in the event of an actual emergency."

"Then what's the problem, sounds like he's shittin' in tall cotton."

"He can't breathe."

"Bullshit, you just told me he's on life support; a machine is breathing for him.  I hear no alarms."

"That's because after I disconnected his circuit, I turned them off," Morbid informed Westphal.  "We don't need any assistance from the rest of the staff.  Let's not bother them," he suggested sweetly.  "We require only ourselves."

"Yeah, but I'm way too -"

"You're not busy at all," Morbid continued, "And poor Mrs. Fussbudget has had enough."

"You really think I need to come?"

"Just quit dicking around and get here before everyone else does.  Hike up your skirt, you dog-fucking coward, it's time to face the music.  His sats are dropping pretty fast."

"What are they?"

"76%, cupcake," Morbid stated, "and it's a quickening snowball.  You know how fast it's going to slide now, don't you?"

"Yes," Westphal said, "I can't get there in time, please stop it."

"If I do, will you still come?"

"Yes.  I pretty much have to, don't I?"

"That's right."

"But I can't come, you know, right this second."

"I know," Morbid assured him.  "We will wait, I'll re-connect him.  He will stay on until you arrive, but don't fuck around."

"I – I know, I won't but I need some time," pleaded Westphal.

"He will be fine if you get here in twenty," said Morbid.

"Twenty minutes?"

"Yes, Westphal, twenty minutes and that's not a lot to get where you need to be.  It's time to break out the sterile needle and quit fucking around.  You know what I mean, jelly bean?  We don't need to hide it anymore.  We are way past that.  Shoot yourself up and arrive high, Westphal."

"Okay."

"We don't mind.  It's better this way, if you think about it."

"Okay."

"And don't forget the scalpel and 4.0 silk."

"Of course, I'll bring them."  Westphal was silent a moment and then:  "I have to come," Westphal stated, resigned.  "I mean, I made it, right?"

"That's right, genius, welcome to the fucking parade," Morbid angrily replied.  "It is all your fault and you need to get down here, so all three of us can lay in it," he finished, the two-way going silent.

Westphal dropped his two-way into a garbage can and walked quickly inside.  He needed a private bathroom.

He was rolling up his sleeve before he hit the door.

                                                 )0(

You see now the one Westphal calls Morbid put the two-way down on the table beside your bed.  He looks down at you and smiles.  He glances up at the clock on the wall.

"Watch this, junkie-fuck," he tells you and points up to the clock.  He straightens his finger at the minute hand, high up across the room.  The minute hand moves in an instant to twenty minutes later.

Morbid smiles brightly as Westphal stumbles in: mumbling incoherently.  He makes it to the bedside and looks down at you, side by side with Morbid.  It's looking up at a frameless mirror, seeing those two together.

"We're all here," Morbid replies.  He immediately cocks back an elbow and just straight shoots out with his clenched fist, right into your waiting face.  Stars as fireworks are detonating behind your tearing eyes.

You blink through the pain, staring in revulsion and hate at yourself, standing there at your sick bed.

Morbid winks once at you.  He then spins clockwise and folds himself into Westphal, who's stoned ass jerks and warbles with the possession of Morbid.

Westphal's trouncey-bouncey eyeballs snap forward, and then right down at you.  He reaches into a pocket, retrieves a super-sharp scalpel, an O.R. swing-hook and some 4.0 silk stitching thread.

"Time to go home," he says and stabs you in the supra-sternal notch with the scalpel.  He slices speedily distal downward, through hard sternum and thin flesh, to just above the navel.  He guts you from stem to stern.

You cry out, soundless, alarms silenced, as Westphal pulls you open wide, cracking your ribs.  He shoves his head inside of you, followed by shoulders, arms, torso and on and on until he is all the way in.

Through the violation and searing pain, you feel Westphal turning over, closing the busted ribs like a coffin lid.  Facing up, you feel him sewing you closed from the inside.  The surgeon's thread slides out through flesh and back in.  Westphal sewing your gaping wound shut, as quick as a goose shits.

Your heart, beating crazily, now gets the sharp point of Westphal's internal scalpel.  Fresh blood squirts full from your stabbed and torn cardiac muscle.  You can feel and hear Westphal's suckling sounds as he sups on the blood spilling out unimpeded from your broken heart.

Your hold on sanity snaps completely as your blood pressure bottoms out.  The alarm shrills again, the heroes summoned once more.  They won't make it.  Not in time, anyways, and that is fine as a finger-fuckin' to you.

You lose your hold on life.  As things go fast black and mute, you could swear you smell the sick twins of sulfur and sugar welcoming you to That.

You awake and the room is cold and dank.  The night-light still glowed, but less, more diffuse, making the shadows dance.  You reach up, no more restraints, feel for the breathing tube.  In a panic, you pull it out, lean over the side-rail and vomit on the floor.  You drop the cuff-inflated tube on top of the mess you left.  You breathe deeply, smelling the foul odor change in the hospital room.  It seems long past rotten to you.  You climb over the rail, standing for the first time in who knows.  The dizziness decreases as you slow your breathing, afraid of what sure as fuck seems like toxic fumes.  You begin for the door, but are stopped.

A gnarled, leathery hand comes from behind, slides sharp talons down your chest.  The horrible stench getting worse, a smell of sickeningly sweet decay, gas bubbled popping out of the colon-ass of a carcass.  The adrenaline is an incendiary in your heart as the beast's mouth clamps on your neck.  Pain, great and sure, wrestles with fear for domain.  You suck in a big breath as the claws dig in. 

The creature begins to feed on you while you stand rooted, motionless.  You can't escape its grip and even if you could, there's nowhere to go.

Another pair of hands and another mouth slides up your legs; feeling, tasting.  A growling mouth bites your groin, where the blood runs deep and candied.  You shriek so hard it is silent, save a highly pitched squeak that escapes as an afterthought.

As the first two feed, they wrap their scaly demon tails tight about your ankles and waist.  A third comes then from behind, cackling evil mirth in your ear.  Her tongue darts outward, flicking your terror-quivered cheek like a snake's fork.  With foul spittle staining your face, she moans and gargles around a mouth full of mess:  "I just wanna taste you…"

Her hand pierces your back like perfectly honed surgical steel.  The hand splits flesh and grabs hold your spine, gripping tight.  You feel an iron fist around bone.  Then, without hesitation, you are tugged back into the black and through a wall with a deafening crash.  Where there awaits bitter cold, wailing and much gnashing of teeth.

You land hard and settle on your bottom.  You look up and see, with swelling dread, the myriad of the doomed and damned.  They dance perfectly Chaotic to the endless soundtrack of their eternal agony.

  You are horrified and glance quickly about for any means of egress.  And at your presumption, Mrs. Fussbudget is merely amused.

                                                                        ….end

 

  PILATE: A Brutal Bible Tale 

                  Drool slopped down Pilate's chin and his night vision sharpened.  The torches that sconced the walls became as the midday sun.  He closed his eyes and could still see the brightness from behind closed lids.

Pilate heard her heart speed along now, the heady scent enrapturing.  She was right behind him.  She reached her hand out to him and he opened his yellowing eyes.

The fangs dropped and he turned to her.  Vampire speed and the servant fell beneath him.  He went for the strongest scent: the blood closest to the skin.  He pierced her neck with his fangs and fed on her until nothing was left of the fruit save the peel.  He dropped her empty and dry to the floor.

Pilate vacated the building flush and ready.  He entered the darkened city of ..:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />Jerusalem, still hungry.  With the greed of a spoiled child let loose among the honey hives, the newborn vampire wanted more.

He hunted from the dark corners; the inky spaces.

The night was his ally.

It swallowed Pontius Pilate whole.

 

Pontius Pilate stood before the mob.  He was high above on a balcony jutting from the building Rome used to enforce its will.  One day each year he allowed the conquered people to choose a prisoner they wished to exonerate.  Today was that day.

The crowd was restless and dangerous.  They were clamoring for Jesus of Nazereth's blood.  They did not want the rabbi set free.  Instead, the unruly crowd chose Barabas, a local idiot and unrepentant criminal.

The Roman gazed out over this sea of rage, beside himself.  He was hoping the mob would have chosen Jesus, but they did not wish to have him freed.  They wished to have him dead.  Barabas was their choice.

Pontius Pilate addressed the crowd from the very balcony edge attached to the official Roman seat of power.  The mob was murmuring ugliness and hatred.

Pilate thought the mob were stubborn asses, demanding the release of a true criminal and the death of Jesus of Nazareth.  This struck the Prelate as crazy since this same crowd greeted Jesus as a king when he entered the city a few short days past.

The mob demanded the Nazarene's execution for the crime of blasphemy.  Pilate didn't care.  Blasphemy, they say.  A cartload of dung, says he.

Pilate, as Prelate, was mandated to preserve order.  Rome, he knew only too well, was watching him.  Spies were everywhere.  If he stumbled, Rome would know about it before he hit the ground.  He must keep order in this far-flung slice of mighty Caesar's great pie.  It was how honors and opportunities were procured.  Judea was not where Pontius Pilate wished to end his military career.  He must discourage an uprising at all costs.

Pilate stood before the crowd, ramrod straight.  The crowd taunted the military commander, made angry threats and stipulates.  Pilate gave nothing away, but inside he was raging.

Barabas had already been located and released.  The freed criminal was delivered unto the crowd.  They greeted him as a returning hero.  And it was still not enough to pacify them.  The crowd was not satisfied, they wanted still more.

A knot of tense fear balled in Pilate's stomach.  He stepped down, away from the edge.  He called for the Nazarene and Jesus was brought to him.

With Jesus and guard in tow, Pilate stepped to the edge of the balcony.  He looked down at the still growing mob.

"I can find no fault with this man," he told them.

"CRUCIFY!" the mob shouted, "CRUCIFY!"

Pontius Pilate dismayed at their reaction.  Crucify? 

"Is this man not your king?" asked Pilate.  The murmuring crowd exploded.  Their reaction was violent enough to cause Pilate to take an involuntary step back.  Their fury reached him; found him in his lofty perch.  He ordered the prisoner returned inside as a barrage of rocks launched from the crowd.

The Praetorian Guard encircled a stunned Pilate.  They used shields to cover their commander, including from above.   The shouts from below were deafening.  Rocks broached the balcony's ledge, raining down.

"We have no king but Caesar!" someone shouted above the din and roar of the crowd and soon the entire throng was chanting it.

 The guard escorted him back inside.  The soldiers spread themselves out from the Roman governor, but remained on high alert.

"A show of force, Flavius," Pilate ordered.

Flavius called for archers.  They appeared on the roof above the balcony in seconds, higher than and further back, beyond rock-throwing range, they hoped.

The archers pressed right up against the roof wall barricade.  As one, the score of archers notched their arrows, pulled them back.  With forearm muscles engaged and all arrows pointing skyward, the order was delivered.  The archers, in an instant and together, rotated downward and pointed the arrowheads at the mob below.  The crowd went stark raving mad.

I see, thought Pilate, They require more than a show.

Pontius Pilate motioned for Flavius.

"Can you spot him from here?" asked Pilate.

"Yes, Prelate," Flavius replied.

The crowd was still shouting and chanting, pushing each other around in frustration.  Pilate knew he had to act.  His contingent of men was armed and the building barricaded, but the rock-hurling mob outnumbered the Romans twenty to one.

"Who can reach him?" Pilate asked.

Flavius considered.  "Ovid can," he replied.

"Good.  Go and tell him what I need."

"Yes Prelate."

Flavius spun on heel, climbed to the barricaded rooftop.  He quickly scanned the crowd below.  There he was; the one the Prelate wanted, right in the middle of the riotous mob.  The target was laughing and smiling like he was on holiday.

Flavius signaled and Pilate gave the go-ahead.  Flavius went down the line of notched, ready archers and found Ovid.  The Roman soldier was an Albino, white-blonde, his exposed skin cracked and red from the harsh Judean sun. 

Flavius gestured down; singled out the one he wanted.  The man was laughing and dancing, easy to spot.

"Just him," the captain ordered his most proficient archer, "And I want it right between the eyes."

Ovid's bow was knocked and steady.  The archer had one washed-out pale blue eye focused on the target.  He raised the bow, pulled back a touch to account for distance.  The bow creaked under the added tension.  Ovid exhaled, ever so slowly, and released.

Blood, small bits of brain and a solid chip of skull tattooed an old woman's face.  She screamed and fainted dead away.  She was caught by people surrounding her and eased gently to the ground.

Right in front of her, Barabas leaned precariously back.  He rocked on his bare heels, then pitched forward and landed hard.  He hit the ground face first so hard his remaining front teeth were demolished by the impact.  A long arrow had sprouted from the back of his head.  It was a good thing Barabas was dead before he hit the ground.

Flavius barked and the archers leaned forward.  The mob stared in disbelief.  Those near the victim backed away.  The archers above each found and locked onto a new target.  The mob knew there was nowhere to run.

The noise of the crowd faded and they began to thin.  They'd had enough.

Flavius reported to Pontius Pilate, who sent for Jesus.  He was going to get to the bottom of this.

Jesus of Nazareth was surrounded by a guard.  He was a prisoner and needed protection from the mob below.  At least until Pilate could cogitate a viable solution to this prickly pear of a problem.

Pilate watched Jesus.  He was kept nearby, always under heavy guard.  Pilate studied him as he would a battle plan.  He intrigued and troubled him.

Jesus of Nazareth did not look like a king.  He wasn't bejewled and draped in finery, but the man sure did carry himself as a king.  The Nazarene was not a physically imposing man and he said little.  The prisoner did not boast, nor did he threaten.  He most certainly did not beg.  And there was something else: something impressive that surrounded and protected the man.  It began to concern Pilate.

Pontius Pilate had ordered many men whipped and flogged in his years of service to the Empire.  Some were petty thieves and they always pleaded for mercy.  Tyrants and conspirators sometimes conjured up a façade of bravery, only to pass out after barely one or two lashes.  Even a few of his own men were put beneath the whips.

Pilate remembered.  The guard was to take eight lashes for falling asleep on duty.  Each lash split skin and exposed muscle beneath, but the guard kept his head.  Until he snapped from the unbearable agony: shouted curses on Caesar's head for all to hear.  The guard cooked his own bacon.

Jesus of Nazareth was entirely different.  Not a sound came out of him.  There was no sweat, or signs of worry.  There were no tears from him, either.  He accepted his lashes stoically, all of them, as a king truly would.

When they fashioned a crown out of thorns and shoved it rudely over his head, Jesus bled profusely.  He was spit on and hit with fist and club.  The only change in Jesus was to blink more rapidly, keep the blood from filling his eyes.

The royal purple cape placed about the shoulders of Jesus was meant as the highest insult.  His shredded back was then pounded by even more blows from the Roman soldiers.

None seemed to see that this Jesus was wordlessly taunting them back.  He should not be able to stand after the abuse was liberally heaped upon him, but he stood straight and with a look in his eyes.

What was it about him, contempt?  No; not contempt.  Not madness either, his eyes were clear and sharp.  Not defiant hatred or religious fervor; not one derogatory word has left his lips.  Nothing has been asked or demanded from him.  What was it then?  He was…well…majestic.

Pontius Pilate rose from his chair.  He strode purposefully toward the prisoner and the bevy of soldiers that were, without orders, abusing the bleeding man.  One of the soldiers viciously backhanded Jesus, a back tooth shot out of the prisoner's mouth.

"ENOUGH!" shouted Pilate and ran to them.  With angry momentum behind him, Pilate punched the soldier in the face and broke his nose.

The soldier covered his bloody mess of a nose with his hands as Pilate sneered.  Bloody mucous and tears escaped the soldier's fingers and streamed down his front.  Pilate said nothing.  He removed the snot and blood from his fist, using the soldier's tunic.  Then he dismissed the soldier, even though there was none to replace him.

Pontius Pilate studied the prisoner.  He was standing regal and straight.  Pilate unabashedly studied Jesus, looking him up and down.  There was something inside the man.  It was something that fairly reeked of fully restrained power.  And then there was that ever-present expression.

Pontius Pilate studied his face.  It was the eyes, yes.  How they looked at you, through you.  Jesus looked at you as if he knew all your dirty little secrets.

That was it, Pilate thought, the look in the eyes of this Jesus of Nazareth.  He seemed to be viewing this tragedy from afar.  Jesus was seeing all this as a parent watched his coddled and spoiled children.  Jesus was allowing this to happen.  He was tolerating what they were doing.  They were all, his men, this crowd, just children being children.

Right then, Jesus smiled at Pilate and he felt a sharp stab of fear.  Pilate was taken aback from the straight arrow shot of terror that hit his chest like blunt force trauma.  He felt the overpowering compulsion to bolt from the room and dive off the balcony ledge to the waiting crowd and certain death below.  And then, as quickly as it came, the terror vanished.  It left behind only the pounding of his heart and the shortness of breath.  His hands shook, but Pilate now felt calm and at peace.  As if it all should be as it is and he had naught to worry about.

Then the smile of Jesus stretched a little further.  As if he knew Pilate's hidden thoughts.

This must end, he thought.  Pilate must show the crowd and shock them.  He must give to them a true taste of Roman brutality.  What Jesus had suffered at the hands of Pilate's men would certainly be enough to placate the mob.

"Take the prisoner out, display him before the crowd," ordered Pilate.  The crowd roared loudly when they once again saw Jesus.  "Turn the prisoner around and show to them his back!" shouted Pilate.

Flavius removed the purple cape.  It tore free the scabs beginning to form.  Blood puddled in deep, angry grooves.  It ran wholesale from his stripes.  His face was a sheet of red from the thorny crown.

Pilate's hands went aloft.  The mob quieted down.  He spoke: "You have seen what has been done by me to him," he said.  "Is this not enough punishment for blasphemy?" he asked the mob.

The crowd responded with more demands to crucify.  The crowd was afraid of the archers, but not when Jesus was standing before them.  The people came full circle.  They hated him now as much as the elders and religious leaders did.

They had threatened Pilate.  They vowed to expose him to Rome if he did not kill the prisoner.  They insisted the man is also guilty of treason for elevating himself above Caesar.  Jesus claimed to possess the authority of their God, they stated.  He stirred up agitators and planted wicked seeds of rebellion.

These men were shrewd.  Their claims could never be proved, or disproved and they knew it.  Proof was not mandatory.  The Jewish leaders will be believed, because from Rome's point of view, why would they lie?  And even if Pilate convinced Rome the prisoner was falsely accused, so what?  His single death, even if unjust, was more than worth the squashing of an uprising.

The Prelate's main function was to preserve the order that was slipping through his fingers.  Rome would have him removed, no doubt about that.  And Rome can be rough when disappointed.

Pilate left the crowd and returned inside.  The prisoner was standing.  He watched Pilate study him with no smile.  Pilate stared back.  Who is this man?

Pilate could nail the innocent man to the cross to prevent an insurrection.  Otherwise, a rebellion will spell the end of peace in this region and his career.  This shameful business shall mark Pilate forever as a failure in the eyes of Rome.

He could execute the prisoner and all will be placated and satisfied.  Peace will be restored and Rome will look favorably upon Pilate.

As simple as that, he thought.

The chants from the crowd were still bitter.  Rage boiled off the people, drifted up to the Romans.  The guards were getting nervous.  They did the calculation in their heads.  They all knew how this would end.  If the crowd managed to get inside the building, every one of the soldiers would die. Pilate could not allow that to happen, not for the life of one man.

The Romans heard them beating down the entrance to the secured building.  It was fortified, but would not hold up forever.  After a few moments the storm of stones and fist-sized chunks of dwelling materials poured down on the Roman seat like a sandstorm.

"Seal the entrance," ordered Pilate.  Flavius took a small contingent of men, quickly disappeared.  Pilate could hear the pounding intensify.  The doors were taking a beating.  "Have the archers hold their fire, but continue on full alert."  The debris kept coming.  Several members of the mob below tried scaling the building's outer wall, an archer reported.  "Sight them," Pilate ordered.  A rock hit an archer and split open his cheek.  "HOLD!" shouted Pilate.  The archers' knuckles were white with tension, their faces grimly set.  The wall climbers made progress.  The downstairs pounding was more rapid and pronounced.  Pilate heard Flavius shouting.  Wood creaked and cracked.  He heard it splinter.  The crowd seemed to shrug off their fear of Roman reprisal.  One of the guards mumbled he smelled smoke.  The rocks made a thick rug on the balcony.  The most successful wall climber fell to the encouraging throng below and was quickly replaced by several others.  The climbers behind the fallen gained fast.  The archers made out facial details.  There was heard more splintering and cracking of wood.  Flavius called for his men to fall back and hold the line.  They were in a defensive posture, awaiting encroachment.

Screams drifted up.  Pilate had enough.  He went to the prisoner, straightaway.  Pilate grabbed him and pointed to the crowd: "You are no simple carpenter," Pilate shouted at him, "nor are you merely a scholar!"  The noise outside became an ocean, the angry mob was the rising tide and Pilate and his men were trapped offshore.  "Who are you, Rabbi?" Pontius Pilate asked.  "Who are you really?"

Heat rose from the prisoner.  Pilate was doused in sweat from it.  The quiet man looked his captor straight, eye to eye.

"Know this," he declared, "I am the Son of God."

Pilate paused.  "You claim to be the Son of God?" he asked.

"I Am," Jesus told him.

"And I am," Pontius Pilate replied, "almost convinced."

The bowl was large.  It contained ordinary water and was placed before the crowd.  Pontius Pilate had hands held aloft, calling for quiet.

"Your request shall be granted," he told them through clenched teeth.  The crowd cheered.

Pontius Pilate slowly and ceremoniously dipped his hands into the water, dried them with a bit of cloth.  "He is yours now," he told them in a loud, strong voice.  "I have washed my hands of it."

Pilate stepped from the mob scene below.  He saw the prisoner being whisked away.  The Rabbi will be handed over and they can do what they will.  He thought it would now be over and forgotten.

Pontius Pilate was wrong. 

He had hands in the air, speaking to the crowd below.  The human was conflicted, Lucifer could tell.  The Roman should have believed Jesus, but he did not.  The seed of his doubt germinated, sprouted and would now bear him bitter fruit.

Unseen by all, the Mighty One massaged Pilate's shoulders and whispered encouragement.  Pilate was releasing the prisoner and the Diabolous licked the back of his ear.  Good, good boy, thought he.  And the Son of Man shall come before a fall.  And the Morning Star rejoiced in it.

Pilate washed his hands of the whole sorted affair.  The devil made damn sure.  It sealed Pilate's fate.  Jesus was led away.

Jesus Christ shall suffer much.  It pleased the Devil, it's so precious.   He is the Son of God and he shall hang from a tree and be crucified.  The Devil was delighted.

The Father should have let me sit wherever I wanted to, thought Satan, Even if it was His holy throne.

The night sky lightened.  Dawn broke brilliant.  The first light of morning filtered into the great room and woke Pontius Pilate.  He still was dressed from the previous day.  He rose, stretched out the muscles in his back and scratched absently at his itchy ear.  He yelled loudly for his servants.  Pilate heard them stir.

He went to the balcony and watched the sun as it rose over the Holy City.  The area below him was empty and quiet.  Pilate folded arms across his chest and reflected.  He squashed a rebellion as surely as night follows the day.  If an innocent man died to prevent such an uprising, then so be it.  His conscience was clear.

Pilate stepped back from the balcony railing and tripped.  The servants saw him fall and rushed to his aid.  Embarrassed, Pilate waved them off.  He looked down to see what he tripped over.

Between his feet were two concave indentations right behind where he had addressed the angry mob.  They were shaped like sandled feet and were big enough for Pilate's feet to swim in.

He stared at the indentations.  His itchy ear turned red-hot.  A dagger of immense pain stabbed the ear.  Pilate squeezed his eyes shut against the pain, scrunched his face.  As fast as he could, Pilate pawed at the offending pain.  He felt something pop.  Warmth flooded his fingers.

Pilate thought the warmth was blood.  It was not.  He brought fingers before his eyes.  One of his servants screamed.

The fluid was yellow/green and thick.  Spots of blood dotted the mess.  Pilate studied it.  The muddle looked horrible and it smelled even worse.  He couldn't believe it had come from his ear.

The servant ran away from him, fearful Aramaic following her wake.  Another servant gasped.  Her hands flew to her face.

A fat grub was plowing the foul, waxy field of his fingers.  The grub feasted while Pontius Pilate gazed on in abject horror.

Pilate flicked off the bug and wiped the mess from his hand.  It started to hurt him bad.  The pain seared hot.  Pilate grabbed his wrist, squeezing and wincing and rocking back and forth from the pain.  His fingers felt in flame.  He hissed through clenched teeth.  The servant fainted dead away.

His flesh was melting off the bone and fingernails dissolved right before his very eyes.

A moment later, loudly and long, Pontius Pilate did scream.

 

Pontius Pilate sat with his gloomy head in his good hand and waited for the wine to kick in.  His other hand had the three middle fingers amputated and the nubbins healed nicely.  Pilate's ear cartilage was also removed, but there were no more bugs, thank the gods.  On that, he was grateful.

But still, it wasn't really the pain of physical ailment that troubled Pontius Pilate so.

Silent, the stalking butler led the pair of male crones down the long passageway.  It was tubular.  It throbbed and contracted.  The smell, menace and fear.  It was pink and gray, aligned with throbbing veins, giant nerve endings.  It was a living thing and it both hated and loved them.  The fear of the Pharisees was a melon.  They bit into it whole and unyielding.  They were quite the thrilled little queers.

The Diabolous drew them into his chamber and unto his mighty presence.  Blue cold surrounded their god.  Blue, painful, raw and cold and they felt power in abundance.  It was a silo filled and alive.  It was pain, pleasure and power in abundance.  It surged forth, this power and bathed them in it.  It snaked in through the pores of their skin.  It radiated in and around their hearts, lungs, all of the vital organs.  The power surfed through blood vessels, into the heart.  Then it extended itself outward until every single solitary red blood cell knew this power existed, dominated.  They felt terror and triumph.

They fell to their knees, so delicious.  It was the raw edge of a blissful sore, tickled and teased.  It felt like the bull of a cock being hammered into the base of their skulls.  They wept, these men of power.  All their money, drugs and petty ambitions mattered not to the Mighty One.

As the two drew nigh, the Diabolous considered them.  He fed off their fear, but doubled dark joy back unto them.  It was an enabling symbiosis, webs of pretty deceit, desire and delightful dependence.

They shall be both slave of the evil they were embracing and master.  Truncheon gifted to them for dominion over the lesser creatures; humans included.  And bells for their servitude to the malevolent spirit they now owed their eternal essence to.  Bells fettered to them so they can, for all time, be found.  So the Angel of Iniquity can summon them, know what evil deeds they be stirring.

Annas and Caiaphas would have surrendered their very lives to the Diabolous, had he hinted so. 

He had the two old men look upon him.  They saw the human male the devil portrayed.  The god bent to them, euphoria enveloping them.  His lustrous blonde hair waved around him like a malignant halo.  His dark as secrets eyes fixed on them.  He went to one knee, weight cracking the floor.  He beheld them and they then knew, as if it was always there, around the corners of their minds.  They saw his designs, what he meant to do, what they must do to serve him. 

They begged to do his bidding.  They implored like greedy children to give unto them the reward they desire.  The merest taste of his awesome power they pleaded for themselves.  To seize a drop of the Mighty One's influence, so they would never be without him.  Then they would be whole.

The Diabolous bestowed upon them a smile.  He agreed with their barter and sealed their deal with a kiss.  They will find this Judas and have him bring that little Christ to task.

They squealed with delight like naughty, naughty schoolgirls.